Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Day 3: Calling Courtney

Yay! We've got another exciting sale story for everyone. Give a listen to Courtney's "call."

In the fall of 2005, I received two BIG calls from the guy who is now my agent – one offering representation for my book; and another letting me know that Simon & Schuster had officially made an offer to buy it. I had known that Simon & Schuster was considering the manuscript. I’ve been a huge Carly Simon fan for as long as I can remember, and this part of an email I sent to myself on October 27, 2005, the day the offer was supposedly coming in, so I could record what I was thinking:

My palms have been sweating all day today, literally. I listened to Carly Simon music on my commute to work this morning, hoping that she would send luck my way and somewhere some cosmic force would make the connection between my adoration of Carly Simon and my hopefulness about publication by Simon & Schuster -- her father's company.I'm so impatient. It is one o'clock now. I'm impressed for making it to the other side of morning. How many more hours could it be? What if I don't find out today at all? What if it is bad news? What if I never get published?

It seems so silly to reread it now. I mean, I still love Carly Simon – but I can’t believe I actually thought listening to her music would determine whether I was published . . . or maybe it did. A few hours after I sent myself that email, I received THE CALL from my agent – the second big call. I was sitting in my office right off of Wall Street in New York City, where I should have been reading legal briefs, or something like that. But instead I was listening to my agent, saying Simon & Schuster was in fact offering representation.

The next month, November of 2005, my sister and I went to Carly Simon’s concert at Lincoln Center. It was absolutely incredible – the perfect way to celebrate everything that had happened.

Now that's a story! And we know you're going to listen to Carly now. ;) Tomorrow Courtney talks about her dedication of MY SO-CALLED FAMILY.

4 comments:

What if Carly Simon reads this; wouldn't that be great? Imagine: it shows up on her google alerts, she'll think it's such a cool story, she'll call you and that will be your THIRD big call in October! Carly Simon are you reading this? Call Courtney, but before 6:30 tonight b/c she's having a big launch party.

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We are a group of debut Middle-Grade and YA authors. Our books vary widely, from old fashioned fairy tales to edgy urban romances, but each of us is incredibly excited to be publishing our first novel for children in 2008. So we've banded together to help spread the word about some of the freshest voices in fiction this year! We hope you enjoy our blog...